


Flightless

by redrioting



Series: zine fics [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Injury, Major Character Injury, Team Dynamics, ish adsfg idk how to tag mate, tendou plays the ukulele
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 04:28:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12425028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redrioting/pseuds/redrioting
Summary: How to get Ushijima Wakatoshi to stay away from volleyball - a guide by Tendou Satori ft Oohira Reon





	Flightless

**Author's Note:**

> this was my piece for the [ushijima zine!!](https://twitter.com/UshijimaZine) :D

In his third year of high school, Wakatoshi finds himself at a physiotherapist’s office more often than not, where he learns more techniques to practice back in his dorm room,stretching and strengthening his left shoulder and for an hour before he goes to sleep and fifteen minutes before morning practice. 

Some mornings his teammates would join him and focus on stretching their muscles properly under Wakatoshi’s watchful eye, until he asks for help with taping his shoulder. Oohira and Shirabu always help, with colourful muscle tape soon dotting his sore arm and shoulder blade, some green sneaking up his neck, marking him in a splatter of colourful stripes until he pulls on his shoulder guard and gym shirt.

Walking back into the gym, he notes with a satisfied nod that his team mates have set up the nets and have gone into their own personal practice sessions, with the sounds of volleyballs slamming against the floor, the smack of palms against it and the pleased shouts of successful blocks. 

 

“Oi, Waka-to-shi!” shouts Tendou, arms waving in the air and grin taking up half his face, until Shirabu makes a snide comment and he sticks his tongue out at their underclassman. “What happened to bein’ outta the gym, hmm?”

“It is morning practice, I must be in the gym,” Wakatoshi responds, blunt and confused. Walking towards a set up net and picking up a stray ball. “As per usual.”

Tendou clicks his tongue at Wakatoshi and skips towards him, briefly ruffling Goshiki’s hair. “’Toshi, here I thought you were Captain Obvious.”

“No,” Wakatoshi wrinkles his brow. Passing the ball to a first year setter, he nods at the net and gets into position, on the right side of the court. “I am the captain of the Shiratorizawa volleyball team.”

The laugh that leaves Tendou has Semi rolling their eyes and storming towards them, ready to take care of the meddling middle blocker before he could do anything else. “You’re great, Waka, the greatest.”

“Thank you, that is why I must practice this morning,” Tendou shakes his head and makes more clicking noises, waving at the first year and pushing Semi towards them with a wicked grin. 

“Help Amano, eh, Semi-semi.”

Wakatoshi frowns when Amano blushes and holds the volleyball closer to his chest.

“Tendou I must practice –“

“Nope,” he says, popping the ‘P’.

Wakatoshi tries again, “It is important –“

“No, nope, nada, nyet, Waka I can try and say it in Swahili too.” Tendou smirks, lips stretched thin over his teeth. “Hapana.”

The look he receives is nothing short of muddled. Wakatoshi bends down and picks up a volleyball that rolled towards him. He gives Tendou one more look before throwing the ball ahead of him in an underarm serve, ready to run, jump, and spike the ball across the net.

He would have done that, if not for Tendou having stepped in his path, arms on his hips and head tilted to the side. “Wakkun, are ya, dare I say, playing with an injured shoulder?”

Wakatoshi bristles but levels Tendou with a blank expression, only ruined by him squinting slightly. It was too early for any communication that exceeded the range of volleyball terminologies.

“Aren’t ya meant to be off court?” Tendou leans in close and tilts his head slightly, eyes glinting with amusement and mischief. Wakatoshi cocks his head to the side.

He grunts in acknowledgement and Tendou grins widely. “You can’t play, ‘Toshi!”

Wakatoshi releases a deep breath and shrugs with his good shoulder only. He reaches for the ball in Tendou’s hands and murmurs a comment underneath his breath, one that makes Tendou huff a chuckle. 

“Nuh huh, Wakkun! Can’t play volleyball, doctor’s orders.”

“I am still capable of utilising my right arm,” he states, brushing off Tendou’s comment. The thought of not practicing irks him; he is aware of his own limitations - his body could only handle so much, even with caution - and shortcomings but he can overcome them.

Tendou croons, bouncing on the balls of his feet, he throws an arm around Wakatoshi’s shoulders, mindful to his injury. “‘Course! You’re our Wakkun, ya can do anythin’,” Tendou quips, tone playful as he steers Wakatoshi away from the net and towards the benches. 

Tendou gestures to Oohira behind Wakatoshi, pointing at the ace’s protected shoulder before he directed his wild signals towards the gym’s doors. Oohira tilts his head forward and moves towards them both, meeting them in the middle with a book tucked in the crook of his elbow. 

Soft smiles and warm eyes stop Wakatoshi’s attempts at twisting out of Tendou’s grip. The look he receives from his friend has Wakatoshi nodding, heaving a sigh and rolling his uninjured shoulder. Oohira claps his back and passes him the book he was holding, cover drawn upon with blue and green pens and a plethora of colourful post it notes sticking out from each corner.

“Take it easy, Wakatoshi,” he says, smiling when Goshiki yells proudly in the background. “We need our captain and ace to be fit as a fiddle.”

“I am not a wooden instrument?”

Reon grins, shaking his head and ruffling Wakatoshi’s hair.

“Playing volleyball can’t be the only thing you do Toshi!” Tendou comments, him and Oohira tugging Wakatoshi towards the entrance of the gym. “C’mon we’ll find somethin’ you can do, and if there ain’t anythin’ then annoying Semi-Semi is always an option.”

The resounding yell from the gym contradicts that. 

 

[][][]

 

A day later finds Wakatoshi sitting in his dorm room with Tendou spread on a bean bag. 

The ukulele looks even smaller in Wakatoshi’s hands. He eyes Satori’s movements, watching how he carries the instrument in his hands, fingers flitting over the fretboard, other hand brushing against the strings in a familiar melody.

Wakatoshi might be wrong, but he’s certain it’s from an anime Satori watches.

“’Kay ‘Toshi,” Satori interrupts, “you gotta learn that strangling an uke is not how ya play it.”

He holds the ukulele closer to his chest and Satori snorts at that, shaking his head and fixing Wakatoshi’s placement of his instrument.

“Pretend it's like a wooden Tsutomu,” Wakatoshi’s expression twists and Tendou snorts loudly. 

“Goshiki is not wood,” the snort he receives makes him cock his head to the side. “He is the aspiring ace of Shiratorizawa.”

The two exchange comments after that, every so often Tendou would pause and give Wakatoshi a tip, to which he’d try his best to work with, until they find themselves playing the first few bars of Tendou’s favouite Shounen Jump anime. 

“There ya go Waka!” He shakes his head, staring down at the instrument in his hands as he plucks at the chords the way Tendou showed him twice before. “You’re doin’ great!”

“It is odd,” he states, eyebrows knitting together. “I am not familiar with this.”

“‘Course you’re not! Ya just started, practice makes perfect, eh, Waka?”

He nods, contemplating how going from volleyball practice to learning how to play a ukulele is helping him, and realises that his shoulder’s been resting. Staying in a perfect position for it to relax instead of be overworked as it would if he played volleyball. 

An odd sense of calm waves over him as Tendou continues to play his ukulele and hum, sometimes stopping just to sing the chorus of a song Wakatoshi had briefly heard during their midnight conversations. 

Wakatoshi thinks of volleyball in the afterglow of his session with Tendou, sitting at his desk with Oohira’s book open before him, notes and memos scattered everywhere in post-it notes and coloured with bright highlighters.

He feels strange then, reading about the comparisons of soils to use for different plants. As if a part of him is hidden, taking its place behind closed doors, resting and waiting until it could emerge back again when Wakatoshi’s shoulder fully heals. 

Wings. Wakatoshi thinks, he understands the important of them to an eagle’s survival, he had felt the crushing helplessness of not being with his team, face remaining passive in forced calm. A leader without his flock.

A flightless eagle.

He shakes his head, removing the thought immediately and immersing himself back into the gardening book with determination. He isn’t a flightless eagle. He may not be able to fly for now, but soon he will.

“Thank you,” he had interrupted back then, Tendou’s eyes had flown open with his hands in front of him, poised in bizarre gestures. “For teaching me of another way to fly.”

With a smile tickling at his lips, Wakatoshi flips to the next page and hums the same tune he played with Tendou.

**Author's Note:**

> i love to read screms about whatever poop i tried to write :D 
> 
> screm at me on [tumblr](amajikies.tumblr.com) or [twitter](twitter.com/mistakepng) !!   
> \- mack


End file.
